Newly Opened Areas of Rome's Colosseum Offer Never-before-seen Views

The upper floors include a passageway that has never before been open to the public.

Jess McHugh

October 03, 2017

The upper levels of Rome's Colosseum will soon open to the public, allowing visitors to pass through a connecting hallway that has never before been available to visitors.

Italian Culture Minister Dario Francheschini visited the 171-foot-high Colosseum on Tuesday ahead of the official opening slated for November 1, the Associated Press reported.

The fourth and fifth floors would have been the cheap seats in ancient Rome, but now they offer some of the best views of the Colosseum.

The Colosseum recently completed a three-year-long renovation to give a facelift to one of the city's most-visited monuments.

Initially completed in 80 A.D., the amphitheater was used as the site for different attractions, including famed fights between gladiators. The former stadium now sees some 7 million visitors annually, and the daily wear and tear can take its toll.

Visitors have also purposefully defaced the ancient structure, and in two separate incidents this year alone, tourists carved their names into the Colosseum's walls. In February, a French woman used an ancient coin to deface the attraction — she now faces charges of “aggravated damage to a building of historical and artistic interest.” Another tourist wrote his family's names on the walls of the Colosseum in April.

“Rome deserves respect. Whoever harms the Colosseum, harms all Romans and all who love the city,” Mayor Virginia Raggi wrote in a statement posted to Twitter following the April vandalism.